Tuesday - 7:18 am

So, I was looking at a post from an old friend - we're talking old friend as from the early 80's, high school pals type of thing - he had posted a pic of another old friend that had died maybe 3 years after he graduated high school.  I won't be posting names or anything to keep it private and not trying to judge anyone here, people have all kinds of problems in life and they deal with things differently.  

I asked how he had died?  I mean, it's not a bad question, people pass others ask what happened to them?  I got a Facebook video call from this guy.  I hadn't talked to him in probably 42 years.  We've had a few chats via comments on a post, but not an actual conversation.  He went straight to it and something I had previously guessed when I heard about it.  The dude was at a party playing Russian roullette. 

Meaning, he had a revolver loaded with one round.  He used to do this at parties I attended - rowdy parties with lots of beer and fighting.  He'd do it and challenge others to do it as well.  They got to me one night and I flatly refused.  I thought it was an incredibly stupid thing to do and I made no bones about it.  You want to off yourself, that's your choice, I am not suicidal.  They called me a pus*** and such and I didn't care.  If you don't care whether you live or die, then go right ahead. If you feel you have something to live for, that's probably not a good idea. 

So, this guy was 21 years old, at a drinking party, did his routine and blew his brains out right in front of a crowd of people.  

At the age of 21, I was fully into the mission field and doing God's work, I was both loving it and hating it, but I wasn't drinking and I wasn't engaging in stupid stuff.  I won't go into the mission field now, it's a story that would take days to write out and that wasn't the point of this post. 

We caught up with each other, he invited me to visit him in Canada and ended the call. I finally found out how he ended up back in Canada, he had been deported.  I find that amazingly ridiculous considering what's going on at our southern border right now.  

Anyway, that was an interesting conversation to say the least. He was lamenting that most of "us" are all dead and gone now.  I haven't kept up with those people, high school years were tumultuous, even scary.  Lots of fighting, gangs, hate, anger, drugs, recipes for disaster and failure.  I would have been a lot better off in life if I had never become involved with any of those people.  If I had followed my "dream" I wouldn't even be thinking about working trucking jobs now or wondering how I'm going to deal with retirement. 

The driver trainer says he wants to work until he's 70.  70?!!  If I'm alive and still working at 70, I want that to be at my own business, not working for someone else.  He'll collect a nice paycheck from the government every month, but what a tradeoff to have to work until that late in life.  

I"m not overly concerned, if some bad scenario happened the worst I would have to do is sell the business/25 acres and that would end any financial problems.  Or the house.  Or both.  The point is to build the business up until it's nicely profitable and then hand it over to those I have chosen to be in my will.  If they sell it, so be it, but by that point, hopefully, it's worth more to keep it and run it.  

As for today? I have Gurdon to go to and then tomorrow is off.  I didn't ask for it off, I don't need or want it off, that's the manager's decision.  Back to work on Thursday with early load and I"ll have to work the weekend for sure.  

It's 13 days until my trip.  I have a lot to figure out before then.  I also have too many empty spaces in my park. I am actively running ads in local facebook selling groups and running boost ads.  

The dryer situation came to a head yesterday.  The repairman received the new motor on Friday, kept telling me he was coming, didn't show up, blah blah blah.  I called Whirlpool to confirm whether they had sent him the motor under warranty? Yes, free of charge.  After that, I started trying to contact him. Phone calls, text messages and Yelp messages, where I found his business to begin with.  

He replied to none of it.  ON texting, you could see where yesterday morning he had read a few of the texts for he had his read receipts on, which tell you that it is "read" by the recipient.  This went on all day long and I finally left him a message:  If I don't hear back from you soon, I'm going to come over there, stop in front of your house, call the police and demand my motor. It doesn't belong to you and I will do whatever it takes to get that motor.  

You see, it got to the point yesterday where I just wanted the motor.  I could find someone else to fix the machine, but not without that expensive motor.  It wasn't 30 minutes after I left that message that he contacted me Yelp and told me he was coming "tomorrow morning" and now he has Yelped me again saying "I'm on my way".  So I'm looking at the cameras over there to see if he actually does it.  Otherwise, I will indeed go over there tonight and I will stand there in front of his house, call the police and let the chips fall where they may. He is NOT getting away with this, that's for sure.  Not if I have anything to do with it.  

What else...I need to get busy with that tractor and I intend to spend a good portion of tomorrow working on it.  If the boy doesn't take it before then, that is. When his family farm needs use of it, he just takes it and that's that.  I can't blame him at the same time I want an entire month's lot rent worth out of it.  So a good 5 or 6 hours tomorrow will get most of the front completely finished.  I also want to get back on the walking trails, there's an area where it's overgrown with tall weeds. I can bush hog them down and clear it out and also a tent camping area that I want to get freshened up just in case.  

Yes, I am facing a lot of empty spots right now, some of that I am sure has to do with the new competitor and his $200 off offer.  I am now offering $100 off and that's as far as I go with it. More than that is a losing proposition and only fruitful if  a potential guest has the intention of moving in and living there indefinitely.  I am getting overnight stays coming in the reservation system, I am not getting hardly any bites on long term.  It sucks, but what am I to do?  I advertise the virtues of my park. I have seen yet another park not too terribly far off that has installed covered parking over all of their spaces.  From the picture, it appears the place is either full or maybe a few empty spots.  

It looks so tacky tho.  That and the cost, it's not cheap. 

I'm just sitting here waiting.  I am not going to leave too early, the other driver has to have time to get in there, unload and get out of there. That and the manager doesn't want 2cd load showing up too early regardless.  I figure to be there around 11:30 am, maybe closer to noon.  It's 2 hours and 20 minutes to drive up there so I just going to leave around 9:15 am.   

I need to fix some errors on my financials, I made some mistakes that I didn't see until I started the process of getting the loan thing started.  I can't move on without fixing that stuff first.  It is not my strong point, doing business paperwork junk.  I am not making enough money to hand it over to a CPA or someone not licensed as a CPA but still has the authority to do a person's accounting.  It's why I have quickbooks. You have to enter the info in correctly, however, for it to be accurate....

I'm looking at how to get a temporary tag to drive the truck back to Texas.  It appears as tho I will have to have the title transferred to me while there to get one and then do the title process here in Texas.  Texas is very expensive doing that, they charge you buyer's fee based on the cost of the vehicle, which is based on their valuations, not based on what the actual vehicle may be worth. In other words, your vehicle could be a pile of trash and they will still value it as in good condition and you will pay a percentage of that.  

It's not really fair, at all, the way they have it set up, but I don't see any such requirements in AZ.  I just don't want to have to drag mom down there, she probably won't much care for that, at all.  AZ issues a non-resident drive out tag, but you have to have the title to do that.  I will probably just show up down there with the title signed over to me and then they can tell me if they can do it then and there or if I have to do such and such.  It will be top priority in case it takes more than a day to do it.  Actually, now that I think of it, I can just call them and ask them what I will need to do instead of waiting for surprises.  I can actually use my house as a resident status if I need to.  

I don't really need more headaches right now, in terms of paperwork lol.

Anyway, I'm going to get busy making lunch for the road and get out of here. 

G'day

Oh, and half an hour later? That repairman still hasn't arrived....